Devices such as LCD or Plasma televisions are becoming more sophisticated each year. Already, most have a processor and memory and a remote control as an input device. Often, the television is connected to a multitude of content sources such as cable-television set-top-boxes, Blu-ray players, DVD disk players, Video Cassette Recorders (VCR), game consoles, media players (e.g. IPod), etc.
A typical display device (e.g. television) typically has a large number of ports for connecting devices. There are many types of ports (unidirectional or bidirectional) including High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) ports, component video ports, universal serial bus ports (USB), composite video ports, S-video ports, etc. As the number of ports and types of ports grow, the selection and configuration of these ports become complex. Some televisions have four HDMI ports, a component port, a composite port, an S-Video port and several USB ports. This presents increased user complexity when configuring the television, when selecting an active input device and when toggling between input devices. For example, in a system having six HDMI ports and a remote control having a “next” HDMI function; pressing of the HDMI function on the remote, sequences from HDMI-1 to HDMI-2. Pressing the HDMI function again changes to the HDMI-3 input, etc. To switch from HDMI-1 to HDMI-6, the HDMI function must be pressed five times.
Often, a television/display has many more ports than it has devices connected to those ports. A television having six HDMI inputs often only has a Blu-ray disk player and a set-top-box (e.g. cable box) attached to two of the six inputs. In such, sequential toggling between these devices requires on average, skipping two empty ports to get to the active ports. This also requires the viewer to remember that the Blu-ray disk is connected to, for example, the HDMI-1 port and the set-top-box is connected to the HDMI-3 port, etc. Furthermore, even when all ports have connected devices, it doesn't make sense to toggle to a port connected to a device that is not generating a signal (e.g. the device is off).
What is needed is a display/television system that will detect which ports are connected to devices and which devices are active.